


After the Fires, Before the Flood

by Fickle_Obsessions



Series: Sweet Baby, I Need Fresh Blood [2]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Harems, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:45:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fickle_Obsessions/pseuds/Fickle_Obsessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America's Founding Vampires. George Washington is the sire of a coven (more like harem) of vampires.</p><p>This is how Washington found Arnold. And how they've always kind of been good but bad for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fires, Before the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a request for dubcon and I tried to oblige. It's dubious, but it's not non. Also, please mind the warning for violence and blood. The references are brief, but not vague.
> 
> Also, I got to spend a little bit of time learning about the etymology of the word "fuck" to make sure they would be using it in 1576. (They would!)

Washington finds Arnold when he is cornered and about to die. It’s 1576 and the Spanish have decided to sack the city of Antwerp just as Washington is crossing Belgium in an attempt to reach the Netherlands. They should have stayed in England, but Hamilton had wanted to travel, had argued relentlessly that the Netherlands, so recently victorious over their Spanish oppressors, was a natural place to go. Washington hopes the boy is satisfied, sequestered as he is now with Reed in a dead blacksmith’s shop with an anvil lodged against the door because Washington does not trust him in a riot.

It’s an appalling slaughter, soldiers against civilians with no protection. A long night filled with screams and smoke, but it makes for ridiculously easy hunting. It takes all of ten minutes for Washington to see to it that Hamilton and Reed are fed before they are hidden away in the smithy. Once they are safe, Washington goes hunting for himself.

Still it isn’t hunger that makes Washington go to investigate the angry shouts he hears echoing along the stone walls of an alley. He’s had two already, young Spaniards that broke into a house, slaughtered its master, and were menacing the newly made widow. Washington doesn’t make a habit of killing moralistically, but when the opportunity is provided he does enjoy it. He’d grabbed the soldiers by their necks and pulled them from the home like misbehaving school boys. In a courtyard nearby he’d held one to the wall with a heavy hand on his neck to prevent him raising an alarm while Washington drank from his comrade. Finished with one, he then had the other.

He is very well sated as he heads back to the already razed and abandoned part of the city where he’d left Hamilton and Reed. So when he hears the struggle, the sounds of men locked in some dispute, it’s only idle curiosity that makes him turn from his path. There’s something in the tinge of anger to that desperate voice hurling abuses in Dutch and English, in the surprise underlying the shouts of the Spanish soldiers that intrigues Washington, and it’s not as if he will be able to take in a play tonight for his entertainment.

In a narrow street, now blocked at one end by a splintered and overturned cart, he finds a young man with his back up against a wall, waving a lit torch violently around to keep three Spanish soldiers from advancing. The young man is quite a sight, hair disheveled, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, and every time he swings the torch his skin gleams with panicked sweat. He spies Washington at the end of the street, calls to him in Dutch, presumably for help.

The soldiers turn and spot Washington as well. They warn him off, jabbing their swords in his direction.

Washington, on a whim, returns the favor of the warning. He knows more Spanish than he does Dutch, enough to say, “Leave with your lives, or lose them.”

They laugh at him. He’s hardly surprised considering that he’s one man and they must have already killed dozens today. To deal with Washington, they choose the tallest among them, but even so he’s still a half a head shorter than Washington. Washington watches his approach, is satisfied when the soldier ignores the musket slung on his back in favor of the sword in his hand. Washington can survive a musket ball, but it’s hardly a pleasant sensation. But they obviously used up all their rounds earlier, and must rely on the blade. The soldier’s stance, the way he handles his sword imply that, while not a novice, he’s no great swordsman. Few young men are these days, they’re too busy worshiping the god of gunpowder.

Washington sidesteps the soldier’s attack easily, quickly draws his sword and slices straight through the man’s arm.

Screaming, the soldier falls to the ground. The other men, startled, leave their would be victim and advance. Washington levels his sword at them and says in carefully slow Spanish, “You have a choice. Save your friend or share his fate.” 

Had Washington killed the man, the soldiers might have been able to steel their spines, push aside their doubt and attack. But the loss of limbs is such an effective form of fear, so much blood you can smell it in the air and the victim left alive to shout their anguish. As the Spaniards consider Washington, their comrade never stops wailing, and their battle-tested stomachs fail them. They pick up their friend and run, cursing Washington to hell as he stands aside to let them pass. Washington pays them hardly any mind at all except to be sure that they are putting distance between themselves and him.

His attention is fixed instead on the young man. Washington is pleased to note that he has not lowered the torch, and displays very little relief at all in his apparent rescue. He asks Washington a question in Dutch, something Washington cannot understand.

“You speak english?” Washington asks him.

“I am English,” the young man spits back. He’s not even pleased to find his savior speaks his native tongue.

Washington puts his boot on the discarded arm, leans down and rips the lace ruffles from around the wrist, uses it to clean his sword before he sheaths it. “Terrible night to be a visitor in Antwerp,” he says as if the massacre were a bout of bad weather.

“Particularly when you’ve come here for business,” Arnold fires back. Washington’s blade now put away, the young man lowers his torch a fraction.

“Are you a merchant?”

The young man makes a show of looking around them, the sky is streaked black and red, and far off the screams continue. “I appear to be out of business.”

Washington’s lips quirk in a small smile. “What is your name?”

“Arnold,” he gives it freely, as if it has little worth. He nods towards the main street and the chaos there. “If you can fight why not run off and save someone else?” Another unusual response. If Arnold wants him gone, he ought to stop being so intriguing.

“I don’t think I’m done saving you,” Washington says taking a step towards him. “Where will you go now? And what will you do when that torch goes out?”

Washington’s concern makes Arnold no less acerbic. “And here I thought you were waiting for a thank you.”

Washington grins, “One would be nice.”

“I haven’t got any money,” Arnold says, and up comes the torch in his hand another inch or two. It’s as if the idea of verbal gratitude doesn’t even cross Arnold’s mind, only the threat of Washington saving him just to rob him.

But money’s not exactly what Washington’s in need of. He’s full of more fresh blood than he usually dares, and it’s a wild, feral night. He gives Arnold a second look. He’s rougher than Washington usually favors, too tall and broad. To be sure he’s well enough made, handsome and appealing even in his sorry state, but he lacks the finer qualities that tends to attract Washington’s interest. Arnold’s chin doesn’t taper, it sticks out in a stubborn way. His lips are thin, and his brow is heavy enough as to seem permanently suspicious. Still, there is something.

Washington looks Arnold up and down a second time, points out, “I didn’t ask for money.”

Arnold stares at him, very still except for how his chest is heaving. “What then?” He tries, and fails at least to Washington’s ear, to suffuse the words with disgust.

“What indeed?” Washington asks.

He moves, startling Arnold as he closes the distance between them faster than he should be able to. He grabs the torch from Arnold’s hand, and throws it away. It collides with the far wall, splinters and sends sparks floating down onto the muddy cobblestone street. Arnold tries to shove him back but Washington is immovable. He plants a hand against Arnold’s shoulder, locks his elbow straight and pins him to the wall.

Considering it was the vehemence of Arnold’s cursing at his captors that first piqued Washington’s interest, it comes as a surprise that Arnold is now only silent except for his panting breath.

“What is it that you think I want?” Washington asks him. He doesn’t lean in, not yet, keeps an arm’s length away and plenty of space between them. 

Arnold scoffs, “I know what you want. Pegged you for it almost as soon as I saw you, walking around a goddamned massacre with your lace neat and not a bit of dirt on you.”

Washington smirks, drags a finger down the sweat and grime on Arnold’s neck, watches the tendons in his throat flash in sharp relief under his skin as Arnold swallows. “If I’m so fastidious, why would I want you then?” he wonders.

Arnold doesn’t have an answer for that, just futilely tries to shove Washington away again. His heart is beating quickly in his chest, but it’s been doing that since Washington came upon him. It’s impossible to say for sure if it’s fear, anger, or arousal. Curious, Washington nudges Arnold’s knees apart with one of his own, presses his thigh up into his groin. Arnold tries hard to escape it, jerks and struggles, but Washington’s hold is not easily broken. He finds a ready hardness between Arnold’s legs, hears a stuttered breath.

Washington presses in, bends his elbow but keeps his hold on Arnold’s shoulder firm. Arnold turns his face sharply to the side, refusing him even as he’s gritting his teeth at the pressure of Washington’s thigh against his cock.

Washington puts his lips to Arnold’s ear instead, whispering as Arnold shivers underneath him, “What is it you think you need to hide? And from whom?”

“I’ve got nothing to tell you, devil. Go back to hell.”

Washington laughs like Arnold’s cursing is nothing more than amusing court banter. “I can leave you if you like–” Arnold interjects “I do,” almost immediately, but Washington ignores him. “I can leave you alone in a city that’s burning, hard and ashamed.” He presses up with his thigh again, a reminder of what they both know. “Leave you with a little seed of doubt in your mind as to why it happened, why you seemed to want it.”

“I don’t-” Arnold says, but Washington’s lips touch skin behind Arnold’s ear, and whatever he was going to say ends up strangled in his throat.

“Or,” Washington muses as moves to whisper over Arnold’s cheek, “I can answer that question for you.”

Impulsive as he so rarely is, Washington touches his tongue to the cut on Arnold’s cheek. Arnold hisses, turns his head back to look at Washington in shock. Washington leans back just enough to give Arnold the room his needs to do so.

“You-” Arnold starts to say, eyes wild, roving all over Washington’s face in an attempt to find a name, a curse that fits.

Kissing Arnold almost feels like Washington is taking pity on him.

Arnold’s hands are already fisted in Washington’s jacket, they’ve been there since he first tried to push him away. They stay there now as Washington kisses him but begin to switch back and forth between shoving at Washington and pulling at him, a rocking motion that leads to their hips grinding together. But they’re badly aligned, Arnold getting the full press of Washington’s thigh, and Washington getting hardly any useful amount of pressure. Frustrated by it, Washington lets go of Arnold’s shoulder, drops his hands to Arnold’s hips and sets them up for him, gets his legs spread, gets their cocks lined up.

Arnold rips his mouth away on a sound that is equal parts a gasp and a moan. He hisses, “Shit,” but it’s more in private anguish than at Washington.

“What will it be, Arnold?” Washington teases as he rolls his hips in the slowest circles he can manage with his blood up so high. “You haven’t yet said.”

Predictably Arnold curses at him, using some delightful Dutch word Washington hardly ever hears. Grits out, “Fuck you,” and starts to tear at Washington’s clothing. Washington frowns at the threat of harm to a perfectly good jacket. He grabs Arnold’s hands and gets them pinned up against the wall.

“Just say it,” he orders, over Arnold’s gasping. “Say one way or the other.”

But Arnold won’t, won’t acknowledge that his hips are moving helplessly against Washington’s, that he’s perfectly free to put an end to this. Instead he struggles uselessly to free his hands. Washington lets one go just to be able to take Arnold’s stubborn looking chin in his hand and force him to look Washington in the eye.

It has more than the intended effect, Arnold stops struggling but he also stops moving entirely, hips still, and even his breathing is shallower. He looks completely unprepared to be so _seen._ Washington takes pity on him again, kisses Arnold and lets go of the hand still pinned against the wall and tugs at his breeches instead.

Arnold doesn’t bother shoving at him, doesn’t bother pretending not to participate in the kiss. He shoves his tongue into Washington’s mouth, gets his hands in Washington’s hair and tugs at it impatiently as if the kiss could get any deeper. He does absolutely nothing to stop Washington from pulling his cock free from his trousers, just groans as Washington starts to stroke him. Washington’s left hand fumbles a bit with the fastenings of his own breeches, but he pulls at them until he can get his cock aligned with Arnold’s, get his hand around them both.

At the touch of Washington’s cock to his Arnold spooks like a horse, breaks the kiss and knocks his head back against the wall. Whispers that word again, “Fuck, fuck,” as he pushes, so half-heartedly, at Washington’s shoulders. Pushes even as his hips are thrusting, chasing his release, tip of his cockhead slick with the anticipation.

“This is your answer, Arnold,” Washington says, goading him. “This is what you wanted when you saw me.”

Arnold doesn’t deny it but he does pull at Washington’s hair as if to exact revenge for the truth of that. His breath is rasping past his lips so quickly, and his hips are jerking erratically into Washington’s fist.

“Let me hear you say it, Arnold. Come on now, let me hear it.”

But all Arnold does is moan obscenely as he comes all over Washington’s hand. Washington likes it more than he can say, that Arnold could be stubborn, could deny him right until the end. He follows moments after, a lovely cascade of fire and sparks running up his spine as he lets go.

Arnold, he finds when his sense return to him, is now barely conscious, sagging against Washington with extraordinary exhaustion. He leans Arnold carefully against the wall, and fixes both their breeches. Arnold tries to take a few steps away but sways so badly he leans back against the wall. 

“What did you to do me?” he asks, though Washington isn’t all to blame. Between fighting and fucking all of Arnold’s energy is gone. 

Washington stops him, gently picks him up as if he weighs nothing, because to Washington he hardly does. Arnold, a large man who was probably last carried like this when he was a child, looks at him in a tired sort of surprise. 

“What the hell are you?” Arnold asks, though he’s docile enough in Washington’s arms. Washington likes that, too, that Arnold is calm now when he was so full of rancor before.

“You’ll soon find out,” Washington tells him as he starts carrying Arnold down the street back to Hamilton and Reed to see what they’ll make of him. Washington himself hardly knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Title of this story and series from "Fresh Blood" by Eels. Find me on [tumblr.](http://fickleobsessions.tumblr.com)


End file.
